Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu wrote in a Monday client note that a potential takeover is possible but low in likelihood, given the financing needed to buy Dell, which currently has a market value in excess of $21 billion, and the PC maker's challenging competition.
" A deal of this size would likely involve multiple PE firms, and we estimate the majority of its businesses (70%) remain under structural and secular pressure," Wu wrote in the Monday client note.

Dell is facing competitive threats from tablet devices made by Apple(AAPL) and Google (GOOG) . Meanwhile, the Round Rock, Texas-based PC maker is losing PC market share to competitors Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) and Lenovo, according to a Monday analysis from RBC Capital Markets .

Sterne Agee analysts wrote earlier in January that after a 10% PC-market decline in 2012, Microsoft's(MSFT) launch of Windows 8 software and hardware may help the PC industry to low-single-digit growth in 2013.

Prior to the Bloomberg report, Dell had been active in a turnaround strategy that centers on becoming more competitive in software and technological services. Such a turnaround is in the mold of IBM's(IBM) transition to a software and services giant. HP, another struggling PC maker, is trying to embark on a similar change effort.

Dell ended 2012 as one of the most acquisitive tech companies of the year, buying up Quest Software for $2.4 billion . At the early part of the year, the Michael Dell founded company cut a flurry of deals for IT services specialists such as SonicWall, Wyse Technology and AppAssure Software.

Earlier in January, Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi gave the PC-maker a sum of the parts value of $12 a share. Sacconaghi, noted that both Dell and HP being valued at their breakup value by some investors given a bleak outlook for a PC market turnaround. HP's individual assets, the analyst calculated, are worth $29 a share.

On Jan. 7, Dell said its head of M&A Dave Johnson left the company for private equity giant Blackstone Group (BX)

Founder Michael Dell owns 15.74% of the company's shares, according to Securities and Exchange Filings as of May 2012. In 2010, Dell said at a Bernstein investor conference he might consider taking the company private, but did not elaborate.